


define maledict

by KyberHearts



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood Hunter, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Pre-Episode 14: Fleeting Memories, Tarot, bloodbound, the author is only on episode 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 21:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15590688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyberHearts/pseuds/KyberHearts
Summary: a/n: red string of fate motif, but not... quite... just give me that good good found family trope... probably will add another chapter once i've caught up with the recent episodes





	define maledict

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: red string of fate motif, but not... quite... just give me that good good found family trope... probably will add another chapter once i've caught up with the recent episodes

Trostenwald.

Makeshift circus campgrounds.

Undead husks.

The monk known as Beauregard is the swiftest of the six; she leaps forward and crack her staff against one of the two monsters, but it quickly splinters against the former Crownsguard’s armor. Mollymauk spies this through the tent flaps and he knows, he will not let her fight alone. He flicks his iridescent blades twice and without the aid of any blood maledict, carves neatly into the monster that had restrained her.

He glances over to her, and winks.

“Doesn’t make me trust you any more,” Beau shoots back. “Kinda less, actually.” 

Chuckling softly, he turns to face the remaining husk, who slams its fists on the ground and charges at them. Beau tightens her grip on the damaged bo and braces for the impact. The lavender tiefling simply twitches his head to the side. A familiar ache crawls along his neck as vessels burst upon the curse. The monster manages to swipe across his chest, but the way black blood drips from its eyes makes the pain worthwhile.

_ Almost worthwhile,  _ Mollymuak corrects himself, as he wakes while a handsome half-orc in piecemeal armor drags him by the horns and tosses him in the back of a wagon. His thoughts and memories are rattling like loose stones in a jar, and a crick in his neck sends a stabbing pain through his whole body. It’s been a while since he’s been whipped this badly.

Scrounging up a greasy breakfast in the Nestled Nook Inn compensates for their close brush with death. Fjord had offered to share a room with Molly, and it takes every inch of his constitution from doubling over in laughter when he tells a superstitious story about scimitars and sacrifice. Poor guy. He seemed truly invested in learning about whether or not Molly’s swords were extraordinary.

Everyone stares for a moment as the scruffy, ginger wizard walks through the door with a couple of books, the goblin girl on his shoulders, and a huge smile that reaches ear-to-ear. This is the first time any of them have seen Caleb Widogast so delighted. He opens a thick tome in a language Mollymauk doesn’t recognize, and fixes all of his attention on reading.

And then Jester, freckled and human-eyed, clambers over the table and starts to read over Caleb’s shoulder. Her antics seem to break the lingering silence in the meantime. Nott fidgets with an expensive flask and tentatively strikes up conversation with Fjord and Beau. Molly sits back in his chair and starts to shuffle tarot cards. There is an easygoing ambiance, at the very least. 

The feeling of--  _ something _ , Molly doesn’t really know how to describe the full, borderline content sensation in his chest, trickles gradually as he lets his gaze trail over the others. Does he call it gratitude? Relief? The emotion is fleeting and disappears in the same moment he chooses to acknowledge it.

The lavender tiefling searches through the major and minor arcanas, then checks underneath  _ The Moon _ , a silvery blue orb with a multicolored, half-finished loom in the background. He’s confused to see  _ Ten of Cups. _ Finding what was once lost.

He reshuffles the deck. 

The feeling of--  _ bloodbound _ , finally having wrestled a name into existence, strikes again when Yasha joins the fray. The seven of them gather in the tavern for drinks and rest after fiendish turmoil.She rubs the marks around her pale wrists where she’d been shackled in the town gaol, and she eyes everyone warily. Her greatsword never leaves her side and it glints menacingly in the low candlelight. Molly is more than pleased to see her return.

To everyone’s surprise, the goblin with a porcelain mask holds out a bunch of miraculously uncrushed, white flowers.

“I got you these flowers,” Nott the Brave squeaks, and gives them to the Aasimar.

Yasha studies the petals silently. Curiously. And then ever so gently, she smiles.

Molly feels his skin prickling, as if he’s about to cast a blood maledict. Those curses tends to strip from his existing vitality, leaving him breathless or bleeding at the expense of hurting others; power loves sacrifice. However, when he sees Yasha smile at Nott--

For a moment, it’s like there’s an imaginary red string that threads through the notches in his spine, drawing him to the way Yasha smiles and cradles the flowers in her hands. Nothing romantic and nothing beyond what he knows: trust, confidence, familiarity. Except now he calls it  _ bloodbound _ , and Molly takes a moment to reel back and consider  _ why _ .

Somewhere between memorable moments like Fjord spewing saltwater like a geyser and walking along the ruined, burnt Alfield avenues, Molly has a moment to sit and drink and stare at a wall. A simple evening for himself and the tavern’s smoky liquor. Entertain a very mild nervous breakdown.

A whisper in his mind tells him that he should return to Trostenwald before the carnival leaves; the circus is his home, it is safe, it is full of not-secrets. Mollymauk Tealeaf knows that the path ahead is wayward until he is not; so he stays with the soon-to-be dubbed Mighty Nein and assures a bit of semblance in his life. Maybe he can still do something good and get paid at the same time.

Huh.

He certainly doesn’t expect to feel this way with Caleb Widogast staring, horrified, at the flames engulfing a gnoll priest. Not so quickly or suddenly.

Caleb is proud, stubborn, and catatonic as the underground battle fades to a close. Molly senses that red string again. It loops and tugs softly at first, and then--

\--it yanks him towards Caleb and his black charred fingers. Molly does want not to see himself in that blank gaze; and at the same time, he cannot stand by and watch. “Time for that later,” the blood hunter tells him, not realizing that those few words will shape both of their futures. Molly kisses his smudged forehead. 

He eventually concludes that being bloodbound isn’t mutual. Molly wishes that it was; then it’d be easier to confront the tensile strength of being committed to the Nein and making stupid decisions as a group of stupid people. Perhaps the idea of being bloodbound is a side effect of two years past; this gives him all the more reason to detest it.

It flickers, briefly, between sips of mulled wine in Zadash. Beau pulls the dirty, torn robes around her a little tighter to keep out the chill. Passing gazes linger more noticeably on Mollymauk, who wavers between complete indifference and the decision to pull up his cowl just for the time being. The red string threads through him like a careful dagger, then loops round Beauregard’s drawl as she picks out a dozen of baked goods for sweet-toothed Jester.

While the tarot cards are mostly for show, sometimes they have a uncannily accurate outlook on the shit happening in Mollymauk’s life. It’s an early morning, and the sounds of the Leaky Tap tavern are audible from below the floorboards. He fumbles with his robes and belt quietly and without waking his roommate.

Seventy-seven tarot cards leap from the pouch and scatter all across the dark bedroom. Murmuring swears under his breath, he picks them up one by one, only to discover  _ The Tower _ , hiding at the bottom of his bag. It proudly shows a marble fortress swallowed by the same flames reflected in Caleb’s ice blue eyes.

Face-to-face with Caleb Widogast. They’d just fought a fucking invisible arachnid, and he couldn’t even meet Molly’s weary, crimson gaze. He still finds that red string tied taut around his spine and its other end is tied to a man who trusts no one but a little goblin girl who risks everything for him. 

Molly teaches Nott the Brave how to steal from grumpy people. Later, she shows off two beautiful buttons in each hand, and talks about a stiff-lipped woman in the Tri-Spire. He is unable to hide the grin across his face and encourages her sticky-fingered endeavors. Fjord often asks to join his morning prayers. Neither of them know who the other prays to; and they do not ask. Molly finds a kindness in the half-orc, and carefully places his faith in him.

In battle, he does his best to protect the Nein. He has bled for them, desperately throwing a maledict to waste a second, maybe two, for his companions to dodge danger. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it does not. Mollymauk is not the strongest fighter and when he comes to, the first person he usually sees is Jester. Her hands would be encased in a white glow, and her eyes are brimming with tears. Her soft sigh of relief brings him back from the brink of death.

Briefly, he does not mind  _ being  _ bloodbound to these idiots.

Then the incident with the Soltryce Academy letter happens (twice).

“What did we talk about grumpy people?” he asks exasperatedly, tail lashing against the wooden floorboards as he crouches in front of the guilty goblin girl. The red string starts to knot and tangle as Mollymauk is forced to question her intentions.

He wrestles truths from Nott the Brave: once under his tiefling charm, and once in a heated confrontation after a worrying midnight heist. Caleb is absent from their impromptu interrogation. He huddles in the basement of the Leaky Tap, anxiously wishing for luck and a lead-lined box.

It becomes clear that Nott is completely devoted to the wizard. Beau is furious and terrified about being fucked over. “We don’t have to trust each other,” she says through gritted teeth, “but when we are working on a job together, I want to know that you care enough about  _ yourself  _ that you’re not going to get  _ me  _ in trouble.”

Mollymauk irately shuffles with his tarot cards. “God, you’re making me agree with her.”

“Oh, fuck you, Molly.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

Conversation continues. The Nein reach tentative conclusions about teamwork and trust, and Nott flees to join Caleb. Mollymauk finishes his drink and orders another round. He finally looks down, turns over the first card of the deck, and sees  _ The Fool _ . New beginnings.

He has already made new beginnings with them. And he can’t really abandon them.

Nott is enraptured with saving and being saved by Caleb, the wizard who might not even know how to save himself. Fjord tries to hold everyone together, and like Molly, thinks that the others will guide his path. Beau is-- well, Beau. Tireless, rebellious, willing to pick a fight with anyone. Yasha flickers in and out of their menagerie. Even merry Jester is starting to confront the idea of being out of depth in a city of religious zeals and assassins in chitinous armor.

They are lost and spiraling and together-- gods, together, they just might have a chance to be something good. Mollymauk might as well see it through to the end. His death or their final fallout, whichever comes first. He’s good with broken people. He can fix them. He can try.  The feeling of bloodbound between them will snarl and twist and slack, but they will never break. Not while he’s with the Mighty Nein.

So, he decides, bloodbound means commitment.

Damned heartstrings.


End file.
